Tag: financial independence

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Financial Independence, Fight Club and the Mindless Consumer Zombie Narrative

Ms. ONL

I know you’ve heard this one before: the narrative of “working a job you hate to buy things you don’t need to impress people you don’t like.” It’s what I’ve come to call the Fight Club narrative, a distinct strand of the FI movement that posits consumerism as public enemy number 1. And while it’s a compelling narrative, here’s my case for why it’s harmful, and what we should be talking about instead. Continue reading Financial Independence, Fight Club and the Mindless Consumer Zombie Narrative

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Stepping Off the Map // There’s No Guidebook for the Emotions of Early Retirement

Ms. ONL

The financial aspects of the early retirement journey are well trod at this point: reduce your expenses, save at a high rate, invest in assets that create passive income, blah blah blah. What’s less talked about is the emotional journey, which means that a lot of us are stepping off the map, and heading into uncharted territory. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here’s our take on navigating those emotions, and why the unexpected ones are so valuable in guiding your financial plans. Continue reading Stepping Off the Map // There’s No Guidebook for the Emotions of Early Retirement

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What If Everyone Wanted to Retire Early? A Thought Exercise on Market Valuations

Ms. ONL

Index investing, early retirement and financial independence in their most commonly discussed forms all rely on one simple principle: They only work if most people don’t do them. (Don’t believe me on indexing? Read on for plenty of evidence.) Let’s dig into this idea, specifically the thought exercise on what a universal aspiration for early retirement would mean for market valuations, and talk about what would make early retirement more accessible to more people. Continue reading What If Everyone Wanted to Retire Early? A Thought Exercise on Market Valuations

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The Final Early Retirement To Do List // What Are We Forgetting?

Ms. ONL

We’re getting into the home stretch! With only about three months left to work — forever! — we’re feeling good about all that we’ve checked off our to do list. But we also wonder, what are we forgetting? And that’s where you come in. We’d love your help to tell us what else belongs on our final pre-retirement to do list. Come chime in! Continue reading The Final Early Retirement To Do List // What Are We Forgetting?

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$100 to Spend, or a Day of Retirement? Think in Days, Not Dollars, to Speed Your Progress

Ms. ONL

Vicki Robin’s book Your Money or Your Life had a huge impact on how I view money, asking us to equate money we might spend with the life force it represents, in other words, the time it took to earn it. And while that’s a great starting point for shifting our thinking about money and spending, I have a different proposal for how we should think of that money to speed our progress toward financial independence, focusing not on how long the money took to earn, but on how much time it buys us back. Continue reading $100 to Spend, or a Day of Retirement? Think in Days, Not Dollars, to Speed Your Progress

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The Three-Part Formula for Success That Works for All Major Life Goals Including Early Retirement or Financial Independence!

The Three-Part Formula to Achieve Any Huge Goal, Even When Advice Doesn’t Fit

Ms. ONL

There is plenty of financial advice out there, including some very prescriptive advice about how to achieve financial independence or virtually any big goal you can think of. The only problem is: that advice, while great for some, is guaranteed to be bad advice for others. Rather than trying to follow advice to the letter — or give it out in a prescriptive way — let’s focus on the formula instead, a formula with three key ingredients that can get anyone in nearly any life circumstances to achieve big goals. Continue reading The Three-Part Formula to Achieve Any Huge Goal, Even When Advice Doesn’t Fit

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How to make saving for early retirement not feel like a sacrifice // Saving, frugality, retirement savings

How to Make Saving for Early Retirement Not Feel Like a Sacrifice

Ms. ONL

If you’d told me at the beginning of our early retirement journey that we’d be on the verge of retiring only six years later, and that we wouldn’t be miserable or feel like we’d lived a life of sacrifice to make it possible, I wouldn’t have believed you. But it’s true. And not because we haven’t dramatically cut our spending. We have. But because sacrifice is a perception, not an absolute, and we’ve managed to balance out cuts to our spending with additions to other parts of our lives. Here’s how. Continue reading How to Make Saving for Early Retirement Not Feel Like a Sacrifice